Newsreels

Filmmaker Playlist 2022

A Day of Drama – Trish McAdam Filmmaker Playlist

12th May 2022

IFI Archive Player

Our second IFI Filmmaker Playlist is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Trish McAdam. Since the production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a singular, independent voice. We’re delighted to welcome Trish to the Irish […]

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History

Irish Republic Proclaimed

5th June 2019

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This newsreel shows enthusiastic celebrations on the streets of Dublin as legislation creating the Irish Republic is passed. On 18th April 1949, The Republic of Ireland Act came into force. It declared that Ireland may officially be described as the Republic of Ireland and that the President of Ireland had the executive authority of the […]

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Irish Culture

Ennis

5th June 2019

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A study of the sleepy village of Ennis, Co. Clare, in the 1940s and how Shannon Airport affected daily life in the locality. While Pathé’s lens focuses on primitive thatched cottages, a narrator describes how Ennis ‘clings to the old ways of life’. A young boy fills a bucket from a street pump and the […]

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History

President of Éire

5th June 2019

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Large crowds gather on the streets of Dublin as Ireland’s first President, Dr. Douglas Hyde, is installed. This newsreel from 1938 depicts the military procession that leads Douglas Hyde past the Grand Central Cinema and the GPO on O’Connell Street, Dublin, to the Phoenix Park where he is to be installed as President of Ireland. […]

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Featured Home

Gaol For a Kiss

5th June 2019

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This newsreel features a laughing Julia Clarke who fled Ireland after being sentenced to one month in gaol for kissing her boyfriend. Julia Clarke, from Glasgow, was sentenced by Dundalk Court for kissing her boyfriend on church property at Blackrock, Co. Louth. According to a news article at the time, ‘the local vigilance committee was […]

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Irish Culture

Irish Pigeon Derby

4th June 2019

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This newsreel shows a steamship carrying crates of pigeons arriving in Dublin in 1937 for the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes Pigeon Derby. The crates of birds are unloaded at the Dublin docks, and transported to the Croppies Accre (Collins Barracks), Dublin. As the excitement builds, crowds gather and people in fancy dress (some dressed as pigeons) […]

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Mr. Alfred Lord Mayor of Dublin

4th June 2019

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In this sound newsreel the Lord Major of Dublin, Alfred (Alfie) Byrne, discusses Anglo-Irish relations and the prospect of a United Ireland in this speech from 1936. Seated comfortably in an armchair in a garden and wearing his mayoral chain of office,  Mayor Alfie Byrne assures Pathé Gazette viewers that there is no serious animosity […]

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History

A Million People Kneel in Worship

4th June 2019

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The Eucharistic Congress, one of the largest public events to ever take place in Ireland, occurred between the 22nd and 26th of June 1932.  As part of the 31st Congress clergy and lay people from all over the world came to celebrate the ‘Holy Eucharist’ in Dublin. The vast scale of the final Congress mass […]

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History

A Bygone Craft

4th June 2019

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This 1931 newsreel depicts Irish men making a coracle, a hide-covered boat used for salmon fishing. The boat-making process is demonstrated to camera, from creating a base with twigs, to weaving the structure and covering it in animal hide for waterproofing. Men then push the coracle out onto the River Boyne and lay fishing nets. […]

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History

Irish Co-Operative Gathers Peat

4th June 2019

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In this 1920s newsreel, an Irish co-operative digs, stacks and gathers turf. It is an activity involving the whole community – even the local priest is involved in overseeing the sacks of turf loaded onto a barge before being transported by canal. ‘Rathangan’ is inscribed on the side of the barge and a man waves […]

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Ireland 1924-1930

Over Sixty Manufacturers

22nd May 2019

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Over sixty Dublin manufactures take part in the Civic Week Pageant of Industry in September 1929. The Parade makes its way through O’Connell street, Corporation Fire engines and brands like ‘Jacob’s Biscuits’ and ‘Guinness’ trucks entertain the crowds as they pass through on floats and trucks. The first Irish Civic Week Pageant launched in September […]

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Newsreels

Irelands Agony

9th April 2018

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The Burning of Cork by British forces took place on the night of December 11th and 12th 1920 , during the Irish War of Independence. It followed an Irish Republican Army ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounded twelve auxiliaries, one fatally. In retaliation the Auxiliaries, Black and Tans and British […]

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